Dinosaur succulent garden

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Here is a Dinosaur succulent garden kids can make. This would be a fun Spring gardening project for kids, can be used as a small world for imaginary play and would also make a great handmade gift for somebody special.

We have a thing for dinosaurs here at The Craft Train. Maybe because they are such amazing, colossal creatures and never fail to spark the imagination in both boys and girls. Dinosaurs are as incredible as any mythical creature you can think of, only once upon a time they were real.

We have made dinosaur small worlds before, with our small world in a suitcase and dinosaurs in sticky mud. Today we are sharing an easy way to take toy dinosaurs into the garden and make them a small world which is also a decorative garden. You might know somebody who would love a decorative garden as a Christmas gift or you might just like one for yourself.

Miss K really wanted to do a bit of spring gardening this week, and I have to admit that I’m not a natural gardener. I either forget to water things, water them too much, put them in a spot with too much shade or too much sun and the poor plants don’t live very long. Unless, of course, they are succulents. Succulents are pretty things that thrive on neglect and are perfect for non green-thumbs like me, so Miss K and I decided to make it a dinosaur succulent garden.

Succulents are very easy to grow from cuttings. If you have some already growing in your garden you can snip a piece off and just plant that instead of buying new plants in pots. This time around though we decided to select some more exotic looking ones than we already had growing. We also bought a medium size round terra cotta pot and some potting mix. The rest of the things we had left over from other projects and decided to put them to good use.

Here is how to make your easy dinosaur succulent garden…

How to make a dinosaur succulent garden

You will need:

• A round pot. Ours is about 26cm diameter but use the size you want your garden to be
• Potting mix – we’ve used succulent potting mix which is a bit drier than ordinary mix and has good drainage
• Decorative small rocks for the surface, and also some for drainage in the base of the pot
• Large and medium rocks to create your landscape
• Small succulent plants or cuttings. We’ve used 4 plants
• Plastic dinosaurs
• Blue glass gems for a “lake”

How to:

Place a layer of small rocks or sand in the base of your pot to help with drainage. For this purpose I’ve used old rocks recycled from one of our tadpole to frog observation tanks

Add potting mix

Place the succulent plants where you would like them and plant in place

Add a layer of decorative rocks

Add a few of your bigger rocks around to make the landscape seem a bit more wild and prehistoric

Create a lake by making an edge with medium sized rocks and filling the centre with blue glass gems

Add dinosaurs

That’s all there is to creating a dinosaur succulent garden.

Our new dinosaur garden sits on the front porch next to the door. You could easily switch the dinosaurs for fairies and make a fairy version too.

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I’m basically a big kid who never grew up and still loves to muck around with paint, glitter, glue and toilet rolls. With the crafts shared here on this website I’m hoping to give other parents and carers inspiration to get crafty with their kids at home – make our projects, or use them as a source of inspiration to spark ideas of your own. When it comes to crafting no rules apply!